JAKARTA – Hoping to restore the social role of mosques in Islam, the Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals Association (ICMI) announced new plans to develop a digital “i-mosque” network to expand the role of the country’s mosques, the Jakarta Post reported on Saturday, December 17.
“It is an effort to build an Islamic civilization,” ICMI chairman Ilham Akbar Habibie said.
According to ICMI, the i-mosque program would revive the oft-forgotten social and public functions of mosque.
To achieve such role, the program would work on expanding mosque roles as education centers, healthcare clinics and cooperatives.
“Mosques are not merely places of worship,” Ilham said.
The ICMI chairman added that the program would use i-net, a communication network connecting Indonesia’s mosques, so people could share Islamic teachings and ICMI data.
Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim state with Muslims making up around 85 percent of its 237-million population.
The south Asian country is also home to 900,000 mosques, according the Indonesian Mosque Council (DMI), the Pancasila Muslim Amalbhakti Institute and Islamic Dawah Foundation.
Other estimates add an additional 500,000 unregistered mosques.
No comments:
Post a Comment